Defining words
by KatherineDiBello
Summary: A V / K vignette for each book of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Over the years Klaus has found that there are words that he can t adequately define.
1. Chapter 1

Klaus Baudelaire had always liked to define words.  
Before the fire if someone had asked him to define the word "desolate", he would immediately have responded: "something that is full of pain, bitterness and sadness."  
If someone had asked him to define the word "hope", Klaus would have adjusted his glasses and said: "the word "hope" has to do with the feeling of hoping that something good will happen in a moment."  
And if they had asked him the meaning of the word "fall", he would have responded that falling is "losing balance until you hit the ground".  
After the fire he knew that the words had changed under the shadow of his own experience, but he found that he did not know exactly what definition was appropriate for each one.  
When they first arrived at the house of Count Olaf, he believed that he could know exactly the definition of the word "fear"; if someone had asked him, he would have said: "It is the feeling that I have all day, and that does not allow me to sleep at night." First was the fear for that house, the fear of not being able to return the days, of not being able to go back to a time when things were happy. Klaus was afraid that desolation would last forever. Then, as the days went by, more things were added to his list of fears.  
When Count Olaf made them cook and hit him, Klaus was afraid that it would become their new life, but there was Violet's soft hand to comfort him, and he thought it could not be so bad.  
When they entered the library at Justice Strauss house, Klaus was afraid that it would become the only pleasant place he would ever step on again, but wherever Violet and Sunny were, it was pleasant for him.  
When Count Olaf told them that they should participate in his play, Klaus was afraid of not knowing what the Count was up to; but he also thought that the three could discover it together.  
As he feared, he also found answers. Then he redefined the word: "Fear is a feeling you can face when you have someone who gives you hope." However, when he discovered that Count Olaf wanted to marry Violet to gain access to their fortune, Klaus understood that there were certain words in the world that he definitely could not define. And then he felt "desolate" and without "hope."  
Klaus forced himself to nod when Violet looked at him before signing, all dressed in white like a real princess trapped in the tower, looking for something in his eyes... maybe a light, a last promise; and he wanted to take her face and kiss her.  
It was at that time that he also found another definition for the word "fall".


	2. Chapter 2

p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If before the fire someone had asked Klaus to define the word "miracle", he would surely have answered that "miracle" is a word that means: "supernatural event that escapes the scientific explanation", and perhaps he would have bitten his tongue to avoid sounding rude when commenting on his opinion about having faith in those kinds of events that are usually associated with religious beliefs. If after the Marvelous Wedding, someone had asked Klaus about that particular definition, he would have answered without hesitation that "miracle" meant: "Violet did not marry Count Olaf, and we are together and alive."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The first night with Uncle Monty seemed a kind of miracle itself, because Klaus was not able to believe that they could probably lead a normal life there. The house seemed so different from the old home they had had with their parents, and yet there was a kind of communion, an essence that made him feel comfortable and calm, like something luminous./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Dr. Montgomery did not want their money, nor did he need it, and that was already an advantage over all that Olaf had been; Dr. Montgomery made them coconut cake and allowed them to be in the Reptile Room and read the books. After spending a season with a bruised cheek, it seemed like paradise./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"So why did he still feel angry and grumpy?/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He tried to behave normally, tried not to think about the way Violet had sunk into his shoulder while they waited for Mr. Poe in his car after the play, tried not to remember her little spasms, the hot tears falling to the back of Klaus' hand./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I was very scared," she told him, and Klaus knew she had only dared say it out loud because Sunny was asleep in her lap, exhausted after hanging for so long from that dark tower./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"And he, like an exemplary brother, had kissed her hair and said "He's gone, Vi." Why did he feel like he was lying to her?/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Violet had wanted to say something more, to thank him in some way, but at that moment Mr. Poe opened the car door and it seemed that the moment was gone./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"In Dr. Montgomery's house they had separate rooms, individual mattresses and he should have slept late; conscious of all the comforts that were there, however, he just moved restlessly./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Klaus had always considered himself intelligent and well-read, and he knew the words "incest" and, thanks to his recent reading of laws, "amoral"; his mind repeated them until well into the morning, and his heart seemed to want to silence them with every noisy heartbeat resonating in his ears. If he could have returned to that moment in Mr. Poe's car, he would have changed his response and instead of telling his older sister "He is gone, Vi," he would have said: "I'm terrified."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He knew that Violet noticed his change of attitude, and that sometimes she looked at him as if she saw something suspicious in him, a hint of something sickly in his skin. Klaus did not want her to hate him, did not want her to get away from him, or to get Sunny away. After all, they were the only thing left in the world, the only span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"miraculous/span thing./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"And then Count Olaf came in his ridiculous Stephano costume, and Klaus thought he could not bear to see the fear in Violet's eyes when the Count held a knife to her knee throughout the dinner. With pleasure, he would have changed his place with her, he would have done everything for her. Maybe it was at that moment when the words "incest" and "amoral" stuck to his skin, and with those two came many other words like "monstrous" and "wrong", that drowned him in the truth./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Klaus tried to comfort Violet that night, and Violet tried to comfort him, and between the two they tried to lessen the Sunny´s fear, who fell asleep in Klaus's lap./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"At that moment Violet looked at the baby, then at Klaus, and did something that seemed to him a miracle: she brought her lips to his and gave him an imperceptible kiss, and if she had not looked at him in the way that she did, maybe Klaus would have thought of it as a fantasy created by his mind./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I could not thank you for comforting me the other day."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"And they did not talk about it again./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They had to go to the cinema with Count Olaf, and the first signs of the mystery entered the lives of the Baudelaire orphans. Uncle Monty chased away Count Olaf and although Klaus desperately told himself that they would be safe at last, he had the same feeling he had had that night in Mr. Poe's car./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The next night, if someone had asked him to define the word "miracle", he would have said: "We escaped Count Olaf again, against all odds." But Uncle Monty was dead, and miracles are supposed to be good things; or not?/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Violet did not kiss him again, but Klaus could not forget the feel of her warm lips on his. She was driving him crazy. He tried to see her as before; to think of her as a sister, loved and appreciated, and tried to pretend that he had not gone down the next step on a staircase that took him to a dark and unknown place./p 


End file.
